the Saxon throne, there was no apprehension on Mallet's mind that in
Harold was the true rival to William's cherished aspirations. Though
Edward the Atheling was dead, his son Edgar lived, the natural heir to
the throne; and the Norman, (whose liege had succeeded to the Duchy at
the age of eight,) was not sufficiently cognisant of the invariable
custom of the Anglo-Saxons, to set aside, whether for kingdoms or for
earldoms, all claimants unfitted for rule by their tender years. He
could indeed perceive that the young Atheling's minority was in favour
of his Norman liege, and would render him but a weak defender of the
realm, and that there seemed no popular attachment to the infant
orphan of the Germanised exile: his name was never mentioned at the
court, nor had Edward acknowledged him as heir,--a circumstance which
he interpreted auspiciously for William. Nevertheless, it was clear
that, both at court and amongst the people, the Norman influence in
England was at the lowest ebb; and that the only man who could restore
it, and realise the cherished dreams of his grasping lord, was Harold
the all-powerful.




CHAPTER III.


Trusting, for the time, to the success of Edward's urgent demand for
the release of his kinsmen, as well as his own, Harold was now
detained at the court by all those arrears of business which had
accumulated fast under the inert hands of the monk-king during the
prolonged campaigns against the Welch; but he had leisure at least for
frequent visits to the old Roman house; and those visits were not more